AACN News Watch Weekly Edition

Published September 13, 2017

Hurricane Irma’s destruction to Florida and other states in the Southeast, as well as to Puerto Rico, has impacted most of our member schools in that area. AACN extends thoughts and prayers for the safety and health of all those affected. To all in our member schools affected by Hurricane Irma or Hurricane Harvey, please let us know if there is anything we can do to help you during this challenging time.

Weekly Digest

According to the 2017 Survey of College and University Admissions Directors conducted by Inside Higher Ed and Gallup, only 34% of colleges met new student enrollment targets this year, which represents a drop from 37% a year ago and 42% in 2015. Those surveyed point to fewer applications, increased competition, and prospective student concerns about amassing debt as reasons for the drop. Other top findings and observations from the 453 admission directors surveyed include:

Many colleges appear to be focusing their recruiting strategies on students with the capacity to pay.

Colleges and universities need to redouble their efforts to recruit and retain students from underrepresented minority groups.

Higher education needs to do a better job of explaining the value of earning college degrees.

The Social Pulse

The 2018 Application Cycle for RWJF's Health Policy Fellows Program is Open!
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Health Policy Fellows program provides the nation’s most comprehensive fellowship experience at the nexus of health, science, and policy in Washington, D.C. The program seeks outstanding mid-career health professionals and behavioral and social scientists with an interest in health and health policy, and requires, at a minimum, a 12-month residential experience in Washington, D.C. The 2018-2019 Call for Applications is open until Wednesday, November 15 at 3:00 pm (ET).

Nursing Salaries On The Upswing
In nursing, salaries increased on average about 1.3% per year from 2008 to the middle of 2014, and since then the rate has gone up 2.6% per year, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Washington Weekly

Inside this week’s edition of Washington Weekly: AACN Board Chair Dr. Juliann Sebastian will testify before Congress on September 14 regarding H.R. 959, the Title VIII Reauthorization Act of 2017; AACN joined the higher education community in sending a letter to Congressional leadership urging protection for those registered under DACA; the President signed a bill providing hurricane relief aid and a three-month CR; and the RWJF Health Policy Fellowship Program’s call for applications is open until November 15.

New Partnerships and Grant-Funded Initiatives

The Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University, bolstered by a grant from the Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Foundation, has launched a pilot program to help address what program director Dr. Marilyn Lotas called a “crisis of lead exposure among Cleveland’s children.” The Partners in Health program is a collaboration of the School of Nursing, the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, the City of Cleveland Department of Public Health, and the MetroHealth School Health Program. The program seeks to increase the percentage of young Cleveland school children screened for dangerous blood-lead levels.

Dr. Roschelle Fritz, assistant professor in the College of Nursing in Vancouver, is part of an interprofessional team of scientists from Washington State University that has received a $1.77 million, five-year grant from the National Institute of Nursing Research to research how “smart home” technology can monitor the health and safety of senior citizens from afar. The research builds on Dr. Fritz’s innovative pilot work conducted at a retirement community in Spokane, Washington.

The Southern Illinois University Edwardsville School of Nursing (SIUE) and Anderson Hospital in Maryville have agreed to a corporate sponsorship that will allow the hospital’s nurses to obtain a baccalaureate degree in as little as one year on a schedule that fits their lives. SIUE’s accelerated RN-to-BSN program is offered in a flexible, entirely online format to accommodate the needs of working registered nurses.